Monday, March 2, 2009

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer Original report from Phnom Penh02 March 2009

Judges and prosecutors of the Khmer Rouge tribunal began discussions Monday over amendments to the internal rules of the courts, aiming improve the process for trying jailed leaders of the regime.

A weeklong “plenary” session is held by tribunal officials every six months, and a statement from the courts said this one, their fifth, would look at a “significant number of proposed amendments” to the rules.“Many of these relate to pressing issues that need to be finalized to enable the court to fulfill its functions effectively,” Judge Kong Srim, president of the Supreme Court Chamber of the tribunal, said in opening remarks. “This plenary session is entrusted with a number of specific agenda items to discuss and decide as urgent matters.”

The rules were aimed at ensuring tribunal judges and prosecutors “extend justice fairly and skillfully,” Judge Silvia Cartwright, a Pre-Trial Chamber judge and deputy president of the plenary session, said in her remarks. They “will not allow corruption to interfere with the tribunal’s delivery of justice for the people of Cambodia.”

The plenary session opened amid media reports Monday that lawyers for Nuon Chea had requested the tribunal interview Prime Minister Hun Sen and former king Norodom Sihanouk, while requesting the testimony of Senate President Chea Sim and National Assembly President Heng Samrin for their service to the regime in the late 1970s.